Alabama bans abortion in almost all cases including rape, UK church urged by some to take note

The Alabama Senate has passed a law that says abortions should not be allowed in any circumstances apart from at risk to the mother's life.

The Republican-led Senate voted 25-6 in favour of the law on Tuesday, which will need to be approved by the state governor, Kay Ivey, before being put into practice.

The Senate is made up of 27 Republicans and eight Democrats currently and if signed into law by Republican Ms Ivey, the bill would take effect in six months.

It would mean that any doctor who supplies and performs an abortion would be punishable with a sentence of between 10 and 99 years in prison. The mother would not be punished.

Pro-life campaigners are hoping that it will be challenged and taken to the Supreme Court to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion a legal right in the US in 1973.

Katie Brookfield, a Christian and researcher on sexual ethics in the church told Premier she disagreed with the Alabama law change, saying: "The reality is that making abortion illegal does not end abortion, it only drives it underground where it's extremely dangerous and therefore it's only going to end safe abortions.

"The places that have the strictest laws on abortion actually have the highest abortion rate. So, for example, in El Salvador, it's completely illegal and it's got higher rates than in the US and I think, as a Christian as well, I find that abortion and unplanned pregnancy is a reality of an imperfect and broken world.

"I don't believe that any woman wishes to be in a situation where she has to make such a difficult decision and I vehemently disagree with the perpetuation of the myth that women have abortions casually as a form of contraception."

Listen to Katie Brookfield here:

Christian Hacking, a pro-life campaigner, told Premier the decision of the Senators should challenge Christians in the UK: "The Alabama ruling is a fantastic, it's a step in the right direction. Why? Because behind this legislation are Christian men and women who've correctly realised that when it comes to abortion, you're not dealing with one person, fearfully and wonderfully made, being the mother, you're actually dealing with two people, fearfully and wonderfully made, the mother and the child growing inside of her womb.

"And the American church has realised that we have a biblical responsibility to care for those little human beings too because they are our neighbour. So, Alabama ruling is fantastic but you can't really celebrate it without taking a long hard look at our own situation in the UK, which is the British church at large does not recognise two people in the case of abortion and doesn't recognise that there's a little neighbour that we have a duty to protect and indeed, right now in the UK government, they're pushing to decriminalise abortion totally up to 24 weeks.

"This is very worrying and it's happening because the UK church, like the priest and the Levi, is choosing to look the other way to walk on the other side of the road and they're choosing to not see the truth, which is that these are little human beings being disposed of and denied burial through every single abortion procedure."

Listen to Christian Hacking here:

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